During drilling of long bore holes considerable time is used for handling drill string components such as drill rods. Core drilling for exploration purposes are usually performed with rock drilling rigs where drill string components are positioned in an active drill string position with the aid of a winch.
A winch wire is attached to the uppermost part of a drill rod or to a water swivel or hoist plug which in turn is attached to the drill rod. The drill rod is lifted up from a drill rod pile and, via the winch wire, placed onto a part of a feed beam.
Before a drill rod can be attached to a preceding drill rod, the drill rod must be positioned relatively the preceding drill rod such that a respective length axis of the drill rods are substantially aligned. When the drill rods are arranged next to each other such that their respective length axes are substantially aligned, the last drill rod can be attached to the preceding drill rod e.g. via threads.
Positioning and aligning of drill rods is typically cumbersome and time consuming. DE102011112740A1 disclose an arrangement for handling drill rods. The arrangement in DE102011112740A1 can be suitable in some applications but requires a relatively complex cam feeding arrangement. The cam feeding arrangement is configured move the drill rods with a plurality of freedom degrees whereby precision may be reduced. The arrangement in DE102011112740A1 further requires gripping organs which can transfer a momentum to the drill rods when a drill rod is to be aligned with a drill hole axis.
Thus, improvements in the field of positioning arrangements for positioning of drill rods relatively drill hole axes are desirable. There remains a need for a positioning arrangement which can aid an operator to align drill rods in a fast and accurate manner. Furthermore, there remains a need for a reliable positioning arrangement which is easy to handle and economically efficient to produce.